One Post- 90 Days - The Budd's Hit the ROAD

How can I tell you all in one post what happened in 90ish days in 2012.....with my new best friend the bullet point. (We will address 2013 in a new post later in February - PROMISE!!)

AUGUST

I just realized that I never did a part II to Part I of summer, but you'll have to trust is was a lot of fun, involving a wedding, trip to Pensacola, Charlotte, and dodging a hurricane thus adding Mobile to one of our destinations.  

• Shiloh went to her first wedding in August as we attending the wedding of my dear friend Eraina, who was getting married to the man of her dreams Jason.  It was a great time and the couple looked beautiful!

Exchanging Vows

Sweet nothings

Cake was amazing and yummy

Shiloh and HOT Daddy!

Congratulations!!!

• Shiloh got to meet her Aunt Danielle, Uncle Chris and cousin Scottie and Papa George in Pensacola.  Shiloh loved meeting the family dog Rocky as well.  We had great times at the beach and eating at our first Vegan restaurant.

Tuckered out at the beach!

Scottie stopping for a snack 

Auntie Danielle and Cousin Scottie

Papa George and Shiloh

Shiloh enjoying a swing at the park =)  Thanks Scottie for letting me use your hat.

Auntie Danielle and Shiloh.

Cousins

• After Pensacola the plan was to fly out on Tuesday morning and arrive in Charlotte to visit Aunt Brigetta, Uncle Bob, and cousins Robby, Hannah and Elijah.  But hurricane Irene had different ideas, and so after canceled flights and a few hours on the phone we were heading to Mobile to fly out on Monday night!  Thanks again to Auntie Danielle for driving us all the way to Mobile so we could get out.
• In Charlotte we had just a few days to get to know everyone, but it was fun to see Shiloh rolling around with Elijah (they are just one week apart - Brigetta and I ended up switching due dates when the time came for the kiddies to arrive.)  We had a great time and loved going to the park and seeing Uncle Bob's family too!

Elijah and Shiloh

Cousin Robby

Cousin Hannah and Shiloh

SEPTEMBER

• At the end of August we took exciting trip to Florida to meet Papa George, Aunt Danielle, Uncle Chris and cousin Scottie we were off to Charlotte to meet Aunt Brigetta, Uncle Bob, and
• Cousins Robby, Hannah and Elijah!  
• Then we were back in the windy city to hang out with Daddy!
• We had a baby shower for our dear friend Jen Miller.  Who after two boys was blessed with a beautiful baby girl Ella

Cute baby girl outfits!

Yummy Treats!  Thanks everyone for bringing something to share!

• It was also a month full of "first"
• First time eating solid food - rice cereal, and sweet potatoes followed by peas, green beans, squash, carrots and bananas (peaches were not a fan favorite although mom and dad loved them)
• First time eating in a high chair!  An upgrade from the bouncy seat and she hasn't looked back since!
• First time to an apple orchard and pumpkin patch.  It was so much fun and we had a great time, we lucked out and had a beautiful day full of sunshine and the perfect weather to take a few pictures of peanut in all the fall beauty. Oh and did I mention apple cider doughnuts!!!  These are little gems of goodness that I discovered last year in our time in Saginaw, Michigan.

First Time Eating Solid FOODS!!! LOVIN Sweet Potatoes!!!!

First TOOTH BRUSHING - Thank you Poppy G!!!!

First time at a PUMPKIN PATCH

What is this Mommy?

Hi Mommy!

What's over there????

• This was also a tough month for me personally.  My father, in an trip to the ER discovered that the pain he has been having in his abdomen was not just "old people pain" that the VA doctors kept trying to give him more pain medicine for, but in fact pancreatic cancer!!!  It was a really tough thing to hear, my dad is only 71 (well, 72 by the time I am writing this post) and in fairly good health, so it was a complete shock to me and my sisters.  Not to mention that my sister and her husband (who has stage IV colon cancer) we waiting for results of being off of chemo for three months - this was going to be a test to see if the tumors would grow or if the cancer would spread with him off of chemo and living the vegan life.
• PRAISE GOD!!!! He didn't have any growth and some of his levels where BETTER than they where when he was on chemo.  Now we just continue praying for radically miraculous healing that all cancer in removed.

OCTOBER

• This was a month of visits with all of the grandparents (luckily there were all spread out)
• It started in early October when Mommy B and Poppy G came out to Chicago to visit!  What a crazy time we had finding a hotel for them (until we realized the Chicago Marathon was happening that very same weekend, then it all began to make sense!)  Luckily we were able to find them a great deal downtown for a couple of days and then they spent their last couple of days with us =)  
• Shiloh also decided to make her crawling debut this weekend and shocked us all by moving on the floor of the hotel room.....little did we know that was just the beginning!!!
• We also did apple orchard/pumpkin patch take to Illinois style.  Unfortunately we did not get the same beautiful weather that we did just a few weekends before in September, however we did still get some awesome apple cider doughnuts, REAL old school licorice, and hot cocoa - oooohhh and we saw a pig race!!!  YES little, cute, adorable, baby pigs racing...was the most adorable thing ever!

It was a cold, cold, October Saturday!  But we made it through =)

CHEESE!

• After a week and a half off from visitors, Shiloh and I boarded our second plane to go and surprise Grandma Debbie for her Birthday!!  Let's just say  she was shocked to find Shiloh and me at the Target Starbucks on her birthday.

Grandma and Baby Girl!

• After all that traveling you would think we would be done, but we kept on trucking with our THREE MONTHS OF TRAVEL....next stop Michigan.
• In Michigan, we had the honor and privilege of co-hosting (thanks so much to Brian's parents for letting us use their home and for helping with the food/snacks/beverages) a baby shower for our dear friends Brian and Anna .   After battling chemo and cancer while pregnant we are happy to report that both Mama and baby Moshe are doing amazing! Anna is cancer free and Moshe is almost back up to full B cell count.  G-d is beyond amazing and it is wonderful and awesome to see what prayer can do!

Brian & Anna

Brian, Anna and Big Sister Dara!

• It was so wonderful to be able to not only see Brian, Anna and Dara, but to be able to see a few of our friends who we hadn't seen since we lived in Dominica or Michigan.  Plus it was Shiloh's debut to all of Daddy and Mommy's Ross Friends =)

November

• In Budd like fashion we continued traveling across the country to visit family and friends.
• In the beginning of the month, Shiloh and I along with my sister Breanna and my niece Lily, traveled to Florida to visit my Dad after he has surgery to remove the cancerous tumor in his pancreas   Due to tight budgets, we decided to rent a car and drive down.  WHAT?!?!?! Drive with a three year old and a 7 month old, crazy right? But the kids were awesome and the ride although about 15ish hours total each way went pretty smoothly.  A special GOLD STAR is given to Lily who first rode with her mom on Megabus from Minneapolis to Chicago, played at Auntie Nicole's for a few hours, eat some pizza and then rode in a car for another 15 was such a trooper and she didn't cry or fuss in the car ONE SINGLE TIME!  Like I said, the kids were amazing!!! * due to the nature that all kids are not created the same we do not advocate traveling for such long hours with small children in a car, please do so at your own risk*

Shiloh LOVED letting Rocky lick her!  It was her favorite thing =)

Cousins playing in the super nice November Florida weather!

• After returning home from Florida, we decided to stay home for a couple of weeks and let the friends and family come to us!  Shiloh got to meet my friend Teddy from high school and college, who just happened to be in town.  And we also had a visit from one of our favorite aunts.....AUNT C!!!!
• Kelsey's sister Courtney came out to visit us and Kelsey's uncle in the middle of November.  It was so great to see her and for her to get a little R & R time at a beautiful hotel - which Shiloh and I took complete advantage of by going swimming in the pool.  Shiloh LOVED her first time in the pool - me thinks I should be looking for swim lessons for this winter for sure!

Playing with toys

Getting into trouble.......

• Our final travel of the month (and of the past three months) came with out trip back to Saginaw for Thanksgiving.  *Apology to all friends who were living in Saginaw over Thanksgiving that we didn't get to see, we were only there for two full days, so it was a quick quick trip* Kelsey and I have had the honor of having Thanksgiving with our friends Brendan and Kristen for the past two years and we couldn't see having them so close and not being able to see them (and of course introduce Shiloh to them as well.)  So once we found out that Kelsey would have the day after Thanksgiving off (on the Monday before) we made a quick decision to head out and drive to Saginaw!  It was quite a drive as trying to leave Chicago at 11am on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is clogged to say the least in the traffic department.  But after 2 hrs we finally made it out of the city and were on our way.  Thankfully our friends are awesome and waited to have dinner until we arrived!  Yummy food and beer/wine always makes a drive better,
• • The Thanksgiving dinner was amazing!!!  Dinner consisted of a brined turkey (a must if you have never had one) done by Brendan, greenbeans with garlic, butter and lots of yumminess, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, rolls, oooooh and the most amazing pumpkin cheesecake you will ever taste (Kristen's specialty)!  Shiloh loved the mashed potatoes, greenbeans and rolls - we were so excited that she was not only able to have a first Thanksgiving dinner, but tasted it as well!

Brendan and Kelsey in the Kitchen getting busy!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

• With Kelsey having Friday off we decided to stay until later that night to go to the candle lighting ceremony in Frankenmuth.  This is a great little German town just about a 20 minute drive south of Saginaw.  It is home to the LARGEST Christmas store in the country (it might even be the world) that is a must if you are ever in the area.  It was fun to get into the Christmas season, singing carols, and having hot cocoa and cookies!  Thanks Brendan and Kristen for another great Thanksgiving celebration!

Congratulations to our newly engaged friends Brendan and Kristen!!!

It was FREEZING OUTSIDE!!! But the cookies were delicious =)

Thanks for reading such an incredibly long post and will send out Christmas and the updates for this year this week, then I will begin my quest to at least post once a month from here on out.

Love you all, 

The Budds